(PhysOrg.com) -- A lake of natural hot liquid asphalt in Trinidad and Tobago has been found to be teeming with microbes despite the toxic environment. The lake, aptly named Pitch Lake (since pitch is the old name for tar), is the nearest analog so far discovered to the seas of hydrocarbon on Saturn's moon, Titan, and raises the question of whether or not water should be considered as necessary for life.

Pitch Lake, located near La Brea in southwest Trinidad, covers an area of almost 40 hectares (100 acres), is around 75 meters deep, and is the largest surface reservoir of liquid asphalt in the world, supplying asphalt for roads on the east coast of the US. The temperatures of the liquid range from 30 to 55°C, and a hydrocarbon mix of methane, propane and ethane constantly bubbles up from the liquid. Isotope studies of the gas bubbles suggest they are produced by microbial activity.

Researchers led by Washington State University astrobiologist Dr Dirk Schulze-Makuch found the Caribbean island lake is full of living organisms, despite the extremely toxic environment, and despite it having no oxygen and almost no water. The population levels reported by the researchers were 1-10 million single-celled organisms per gram of the foul-smelling liquid. Gene sequencing of the microbes showed many kinds were present, such as bacteria and archea, which are single-celled organisms lacking a nucleus. Around thirty percent of the species were previously unknown.

Dr Schulze-Makuch said some of the microbes lived on sulfur, iron, or methane and other hydrocarbons, and some even breathed out metals. Schulze-Makuch said the microbes were distinctly different from those found in the Los Angeles LaBrea tar pits and other natural pitch seeps, and the only similar life forms ever found were in samples of hydrocarbons taken from sub-sea oil wells.

The researchers were most excited by the implications their discovery may have for the possible presence of life on Titan. The Saturnian moon has all the necessary elements for life, except that its seas are filled with methane instead of water, but the asphalt lake microbes survive well with almost no water, and other microbes have been found that create their own water by breaking down hydrocarbons. Dr Schulze-Makuch stresses, however, that life surviving in such toxic environments and arising in them in the first place are very different propositions. He also admitted that it is possible the microbes could have lived in minute reservoirs of water trapped within the asphalt.

The findings may mean that NASA’s motto of “follow the water” in its search for extraterrestrial life forms could lead to missing life existing where there is far less water than conventionally thought to be necessary.

Saturn's moon Titan has long been a place of interest to astrobiologists, primarily because of its apparent similarities to the early Earth at the time life first started. A thick atmosphere composed primarily of nitrogen ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- If a suggestion to be made to NASA comes to fruition, vast lakes thought to be filled with liquid hydrocarbons near the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, may one day be explored by boat.

A new project aims to replicate the surface on the moon Titan in order to learn more about its hydrocarbon lakes. This study could also tell us about the chemistry that led to the origin of life on early Earth.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Research by astrobiologist William Bains suggests that if life has evolved on the frozen surface of Saturn's moon, Titan, it would be strange, smelly and explosive compared to life on Earth. ...

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User comments : 3

Many yrs ago researchers were baffled as to why the asphalt roads, built during the early years of the atomic weapons program, were disintegrating. Investigation revealed that even in the desert there were micro-organisms gobbling up the asphalt.

NASA's "follow the water" policy (more like "follow the water" talk) is a good one until we learn more about these asphalt eaters. However, in spite of the obfuscations, the indications are that liquid water in commonplace on Mars and a good portion of that water is probably not saturated w/ salts nor contaminated w/ toxic levels perchlorate. Whether or not there is life on Mars remains to seen (well..., not quite true) because NASA has a policy of NOT sending any more life detecting instrumentation since the successful 70's voyager program. Why is that? NASA would never keep anything from it's paying public.

It always surprises me that these science professionals are so astonished by finds like these.

There are any number of metabolic pathways that life utilizes- and probably many that we can't even conceive of. So why should this discovery- especially since it is so closely paralleled by others right here on earth- be so damned surprising, much less suddenly an inkling that life might be able to exist in a little- to no-water environment?

One interesting observation- these microbes live in an anoxic, nonaqueous environment, and, given that there are substantial numbers of Archaea represented(which evolved well before the Carboniferous)-this might lead to substantiation of the "rock oil" hypothesis of Fossil Fuel origin. Or not. Interesting, though.